Let us hope that the great German philosopher, Hegel, was wrong when he said neither people nor governments learn from history, or act by principles learned from it. Or if he has largely been right, let us hope he will not always and everywhere be right.

Or maybe Hegel was indirectly saying that people only do what seems, at that moment, in their best interest to do. That would eliminate principles from their lives. It would doom them, perhaps, to always be repeating the same actions, however tragic, over again. That is what another famous philosopher said.

Turning to the recent past, let us consider the fate of different individuals and groups who faced an awesome, but evil state power. There is little more frightening in life than that. What can we learn from their fates or even their fame? What do these things tell us about life? The times are the 1930s and 40s, and in general, what came after.

Some groups so challenged the basic relationship of church and state on the one hand, and of church to society on the other, that they had to be persecuted under the Third Reich and ignored after it. This parallels, for related reasons, what happened to the memory of those brave men and women whom a very significant German called the nations’ “true elite.” They were its resistance fighters.

That man was Professor Doctor Günter Hirsch, the former President of the German Federal Supreme Court of Justice (2000-2008), who said: German resistance fighters were forgotten and the memory of their lives and deeds suppressed after World War II. To quote the honorable Judge:

“Let me conclude these explanations by quoting what Golo Mann said about forgetting and suppressing the men and women of the resistance, the “true elite” of Germany, in the post-war era:

“Thus they were ignored and forgotten twice… The indifference of the nation strangled the living and forgot the dead. By making the attempt of saving the purpose, continuity, and honor of German history, all of which was not able to be saved anymore, they also are part of a closed chapter of history, and their fame before God is far greater than that which well-meaning authorities labor to eke out for them in the eyes of posterity.“1

He is talking about the individuals who actively opposed Hitler and the Third Reich. He is talking about thousands of lives blotted out of the rolls of living memory.2 So for us the question becomes — because it sheds light on our situation — why are some figures from that time “ignored and forgotten twice” and others acclaimed and lionized? Because not all resisters to the Third Reich faded into oblivion as the many that President Hirsch refers to. Consider the famous Martin Niemöller, for example.

Many others, obviously, were victims of “The indifference of the nation [that] strangled the living and forgot the dead.” Consider the Jehovah Witnesses or a far smaller group, the Bruderhof. There are perhaps countless others who were, of course, literally strangled and then forgotten.

Conviction was the road less taken

For example, only the free sects consistently opposed Nazi policies. That is, they were both sects, unpopular groups, and also, they were free since they weren’t funded by the state, like the Protestant and Catholic Churches. He who funds controls is a simple and wise axiom.3 Each, church and state, massively supported one another. But there were those outside their ranks. There still are.

Of the bravest of the free sects the historian Paul Johnson writes:

“Only the free sects stuck to their principles enough to merit outright persecution. The bravest were the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who proclaimed their outright doctrinal opposition from the beginning and suffered accordingly. They refused any cooperation with the Nazi state which they denounced as totally evil. The Nazis believed they were part of the international Jewish-Marxist conspiracy. Many were sentenced to death for refusing military service and inciting others to do likewise; or they ended in Dachau or lunatic asylums. A third were actually killed; ninety-seven per cent suffered persecution in one form of another. They were the only Christian group which aroused Himmler’s admiration: in September 1944 he suggested to Kaltenbrunner that, after victory, they should be resettled in the conquered plains of Russia.”4

Such men and women spoke courageously against the ways of thinking, such as Luther’s “Two Kingdoms”5 teaching, that allowed so many to compromise fundamentally both conscience and Scripture. For Luther God’s kingdom is a kingdom of mercy, forgiveness, and consideration for others. The other, the kingdom of this world, noticeably lacks these traits. It is a kingdom of wrath and severity, with only punishment and repression. Since the Christian lives in both, he is free to act in his private life in an upright, kind way, and in his public life with wrath, severity, and condemnation. This teaching is over and above any command of the New Testament.

Once such compromise was accepted, people were capable of doing great evil. But these persecuted ones actively, on the other hand, on the basis of principle, opposed the evils of Germany’s policies. They opposed them on both the basis of conscience — their innate knowledge of right and wrong — and the plain testimony of Scripture. And this opposition to the state’s policies is why they were unpopular then and unpopular now.

This is the situation we find ourselves in, too, knowing what is right both in our consciences as parents and what is in obedience to the Scriptures as disciples. We have done nothing wrong in the matter of which we are being persecuted, but it is precisely because we obey both conscience and Word that we suffer. We must indeed obey God rather than man if that is what it comes down to. Read the Bible and see this statement once in Acts 4:19 and again in Acts 5:29. Martin Luther said this:

“Peter says, Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men.” Thereby he clearly sets a limit to worldly government, for if we had to do all that worldly government demands it would be to no purpose to say, “We must obey God rather than men.”6

As Professor Doctor Hirsch says: “He (Hans von Dohnanyi) was murdered by criminals who called themselves judges. Ultimately, the perpetrators were acquitted of this judicial murder by a judgment of the German Federal Supreme Court in 1956, with the consequence that not one of the judges who had passed 50,000 death sentences during the Nazi rule, was held accountable.” How many of these died for opposing the evil of the regime? We may never know, but the fame of the righteous stands forever with God. ↩

As Paul Johnson relates, “‘Why should we quarrel?’ Hitler asked. ‘They will swallow everything in order to keep their material advantages. Matters will never come to a head. They will recognise a firm will, and we need only show them once or twice who is the master.’ The churches were on Hitler’s pay-roll. Both Evangelicals and Catholics, as state churches, benefited from public taxation. Hitler pointed out, in a speech in January 1939, that the two churches were, after the State, the largest landowners in Nazi Germany, and that they had accepted state subsidies which rose from 130 million marks in 1933 to 500 million in 1938; during the war they further increased to over 1,000 million. In fact, both churches (Protestant and Catholic), in the main, gave massive support to the regime.” The History of Christianity (Atheneum, 1976), p. 487-488. ↩

The “Two Kingdoms” teaching overspreads Luther’s thought, clarifying for him how the believer should behave and what he should expect from life, especially the government. Here is an example: “There are two kingdoms, one the kingdom of God, the other the kingdom of the world. I have written this so often that I am surprised that there is anyone who does not know it or note it. . . God’s kingdom is a kingdom of grace and mercy, not wrath and punishment. In it there is only forgiveness, consideration for one another, love, service, the doing of good, peace, joy, etc. But the kingdom of the world is a kingdom of wrath and severity. In it there is only punishment, repression, judgment, and condemnation, for the suppressing of the wicked and the protection of the good. For this reason it has the sword, and a prince or lord is called in Scripture God’s wrath, or God’s rod (Isaiah 14). . . Now he who would confuse these two kingdoms — as our false fanatics do — would put wrath into God’s kingdom and mercy into the world’s kingdom; and that is the same as putting the devil in heaven and God in hell.” Luther, M, “An Open Letter Concerning the Hard Book Against the Peasants,” Works of Martin Luther, Vol. IV, pp. 265 ↩

There is a famous man in German and Christian history. His name is Martin Niemöller. He is known for suffering at the hands of the Nazis and for this saying. It is true, what he says here.

He is not so well known for being an officer and then captain on U-Boats in World War I, where he sank many Allied ships. As navigator of the U-73 he was most likely a chief participant in the sinking of the hospital ship, HMHS Britannic. In war so many innocent people die. How many know that those who shed innocent blood are an abomination to God? That’s what Proverbs 6:17 teaches. How could a believer wage war and risk this judgment of being found abominable to God?1

Niemöller was awarded the Iron Cross First Class for his contributions to the Imperial war effort. He ended World War I in command of his own U-boat, UC-67. Later, he wrote a book about what seemed to be a change of heart, published in 1934 in Germany.

Published 1934 in Germany as “Von U-Boot zur Kanzel” and in 1937 in English.

But was it a change of heart? From war to peace, as one might think? Did the lion become the lamb, laying down the sword and picking up the cross? Not by any means.

Martin Niemöller is less well-known for volunteering at the outbreak of World War II to serve as a U-Boat captain in Hitler’s navy (see below). He would not be so loved had he captained a U-Boat for the Fuhrer as he had for the Kaiser.

Then, if he had survived combat, he could have written another book: ‘From U-Boat to Pulpit to U-Boat Again,’ to follow up his previous testimony.

Certainly, he is a very complex man. However, he did have an opportunity “to get off the train” in December 1933. This is in reference to another resister’s famous words, those of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Niemöller did not take the way offered him to get off the “wrong train” that German society was becoming in the 1930s. Nor did he fundamentally object to its wrong direction.

It is fact that he kept on the train of Nazi Germany and was in general approval of the direction it was going. That is, what it stood for. He flew the Nazi flag in his church. He did all this as a good German Christian. Later, it is true, he started going along the corridor in the opposite direction: a little show of defiance that annoyed Hitler, who imprisoned him for eight years.

This was for his opposition to state interference with the churches, but not for opposition to Third Reich politics or racial policies. And obviously not for opposition to its wars, which he was still willing to fight. All that he did he “prophesied” doing, you could say, in 1933.

Niemöller did not Get off the train

Here is the simple, moving description of the chance he had to get off the train. It is the record of the conversation he had with members of the Bruderhof Christian Community. They clearly sensed the wrong direction of the “train” of German society and wanted to bear witness against it. For this they were persecuted, would later have their property confiscated, and were hounded out of Germany. But early in the brief, violent life of the Third Reich many still hoped that they could make a difference. They hadn’t yet learned the depth of the darkness that had fallen upon the land.

The members of the Bruderhof wanted to know whether the famous Pastor Niemöller, the warrior turned pastor, would join them “in the escalating spiritual fight“? Note that the following words were spoken in December, 1933, just weeks after a chilling invasion of the Bruderhof by the Gestapo on November 16, 1933.

Hans Meier of the Bruderhof. He recounts the invasion of the Bruderhof on November 16, 1933 in this video.

“We visited Martin Niemöller at his home in Dahlen. Our question was again whether we could stand together in the escalating spiritual fight and make a united Christian witness against the dark powers of National Socialism. But he refused to have anything to do with us because we were not obedient to the government’s order to do military service. He said in obedience to the government’s call he would again take charge of a submarine, but he would not obey if Hitler forbade him to proclaim the pure word of God. We spoke at length about obeying the pure word of God that bids us love our enemy, and what that obedience implies. But he remained adamant; he couldn’t agree.” 2

What those on the train do

Niemöller’s words are worth pondering. Curiously, when the government failed to call him, he called them! Niemöller volunteered to serve in the German Navy at the outbreak of World War II “in any capacity“. When he did so is very telling, in late 1939, after so much had happened in Germany to clearly, unmistakably indicate to all but the most blind the spiritual nature of the regime. But Niemöller did not and of course could not plead blindness.

“Last, and most tellingly, Niemöller was in prison on Kristallnacht, that November 9th day in 1938 when, among other appalling anti-Semitic acts, Storm troopers set afire 119 synagogues, 91 Jews were killed, and more than 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Niemöller admitted to his biographer, James Bentley, that “It became clear only then that the Jews were to be eliminated not simply from the church but from human society.”

“Now, although Niemöller saw in Kristallnacht the death of all Jews, knew of Germany’s anti-Semitic laws [Nuremburg Race Laws of 1935] that preceded and followed Kristallnacht, and was aware of the overwhelming evidence of public Nazi barbarity towards Jews that accompanied Hitler’s exercise of power, Niemöller nevertheless, upon Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September, 1939, and the ensuing declaration of war between Britain and Germany, volunteered “to fight for Adolf Hitler’s Germany”.

“In that September, Niemöller, a forty-seven year old Christian minister, who was then still Hitler’s “personal prisoner”, wrote to Admiral Raeder, “offering, as a reserve officer, to serve his country ‘in any capacity’ “.

What kind of importance did Pastor Niemöller have in Germany then? Judge by this: he writes to the head of the German Navy and receives a reply from the head of the German Army, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. How many volunteers get such notice from the highest commands?

“In war a German feels bound to join the ranks without question. Three of my sons were called up. I could not hold back. I wrote from the concentration camp to Admiral Raeder, C. in C. of the Navy, asking to be allowed to return to the submarine service or to do any other service in the Navy. I heard nothing for several months, and then a reply came, not from Raeder but from Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht. He thanked me, but regretted I could not be employed on active service.”

Certainly, Pastor Niemöller had a change of heart after the war. That is well-known. But in the midst of the struggle, when his example would have carried immense weight, he offered to wage war for the Third Reich. In so doing he signalled the clearest approval of Hitler’s policies possible. How were his sons, his friends, and those who believed in him to interpret his actions in any other way? There is war guilt, blood-guilt, on the man. This is what being a German led him and his sons to. And how many others followed his example?

At peril to their souls

Martin Luther, the great reformer, gives nearly unlimited approval to his followers to wage war on behalf of their sovereign in the pamphlet, “Secular Authority: to What Extent Should it be Obeyed?”

“But when a prince is in the wrong, are his people bound to follow him then too? I answer, No; for it is no one’s duty to do wrong. We ought to obey God, Who desires the right, rather than obey men. (Acts 5:29) What about when subjects do not know whether the prince is in the right or not? I answer, As long as they cannot know, nor find out by any possible means, they may obey without peril to their souls.“

By his own teacher, Luther, and by his own admission to his biographer, Niemöller volunteered to wage war, to obey his prince, at “peril to his own soul” because he knew his cause was evil. Or else he agreed with the government that the cause was good. It is one or the other.

So is sharing eternal peril — at knowingly supporting evil, at following “a prince in the wrong” — what allowed some to be accepted and achieve fame after the war? Courageous men and women better than them were ignored and their memory suppressed. (Even survivors of the White Rose faced rejection by family and friends after the war for just that reason: they didn’t support the government! It was a later generation of young Germans that would acclaim them.)

Why was the rare and radiant courage of the Jehovah Witnesses not highly praised in post-war Germany? Were not the post-war generations desperate to find something good in those times?4 Somehow the courage of the Jehovah Witnesses or the steady, but quiet faith of the Bruderhof did not appeal to them.

Greater than any mere action

Could it be that such groups are guilty of a greater crime than any mere action? That is, their crime lay in a fundamental realm, nearly unforgivable (it seems)—not submitting to the authority of the government. That crime remains even though it was an evil government passing evil laws, carrying out evil policies, and waging aggressive, brutal warfare. Can we now say in retrospect that they merit inclusion in the “true elite” President Hirsch noted in his famous speech?

“Let me conclude these explanations by quoting what Golo Mann said about forgetting and suppressing the men and women of the resistance, the “true elite” of Germany, in the post-war era: “Thus they were ignored and forgotten twice… The indifference of the nation strangled the living and forgot the dead.”

Also in that 2002 speech, he put the matter in legal terms. He noted how cleverly injustice can be made to take the form of law.

“The majority of the judges did not pervert justice, but many gave in to a formal law, even though materially it was injustice. The danger of a lawless state is not so much that it frontally causes judges to break the law, but that it lays down injustice in statutory form, assuming that judges will stop asking about what is right once they have a law handy.”

With such governments God has no connection, just as His word says:

Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute? (Psalm 94:20)

Many brave individuals could not stand idly by without making some protest against unjust laws and acts (such as not enlisting in the Army as all men were required to).5 Did not these men insist on listening to something more precious than life itself, as the eminent legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch put it: “to the voice of God, which speaks to the conscience of the individual“?

Really, the question must be faced by all who claim to believe in the Savior: “Is it important what Jesus Christ said?”

Before you answer in your own heart, consider whose words have been (and are) more important in Germany: Luther’s or Christ’s? Luther taught:

“Christianity consists entirely in the belief in Christ; the substance of Christ’s teaching is unimportant:“6

“The Gospel does not teach us what we must do or leave undone, but says: God has done this for you, has made the Son flesh for you, has had Him done to death for you.”7

Indeed, according to Luther, obeying “all earthly law and order” is how one obeys God! Obviously, this, in the earthly realm of daily life, is more important than keeping God’s word:

“For we should fear all earthly law and order as God’s will and law. As Solomon says, Proverbs 16, A divine sentence is in the lips of the king.”8

So Romans 13 is where Luther stumbled, and where Germany still falls down to this day:

“All established power whose orders have the force of law is instituted by God, and it is this power which gives effect to His commandments.”9

That is any government whatsoever and any law or command of that government.

Understanding this is why every government makes sure that all its dictates, however evil or ungodly, are law. As astute modern observers like Professor Schirrmacher have noted, all the evil the Nazi government did was legal. As far as the Jews, Luther and Hitler had no quarrel.10

So everything Hitler did, whether moral or not, was legal — he made sure of that. Therefore, according to Luther, it had the power of God behind it. His legacy lives on: even today Germany can outlaw the Word of God (Proverbs 13:24) and strip parents of their God-given authority to train up their children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6), and there is very little fuss. God can evidently outlaw His Word through “established power whose orders have the force of law.” It has certainly happened before.

There was very little room in life, according to Luther, to judge that the government was leading you to disobey God. That is why historians speak of the effects of his reformation as establishing “princely absolutism.” He “freed religion from one captivity to subject it to another enslavement.“11

Groups such as the Jehovah Witnesses and the Bruderhof were not blinded by such teachings. They did not think the Word of God could be set aside to obey earthly rulers unconditionally, but that it stood rather over and above them — at least as far as their own lives and souls were concerned. To them earthly rewards were not worth the eternal peril of disobedience to conscience and disobedience to the Word of God.

We are finding the same exchange offered to us today: eternal peril for earthly acceptance. That acceptance includes the return of our children. . . if we but deny our faith. But by our Teacher and by His apostles, we are obligated to obey God rather than men, just as the apostle Peter taught. Our consciences and our hearts demand it, and so does the Word of God. Here we stand. We can do no other.

Or how many so-called believers have noticed that their so-called Savior told them to lay down the sword and to turn the other cheek? {Matthew 5:39 and Luke 6:29, and Matthew 26:52, Luke 22:51 (NAS), John 18:11} These are ways we follow the Lamb wherever He goes. ↩

The following is what Martin Luther said in the 1523 pamphlet: “Secular Authority: To What Extent Should it be Obeyed?” It is certainly not all he said on the subject of the citizen’s and the Christian’s responsibility to the state. Indeed, it is in stark contradiction to the thrust of his thought, that the Christian should obey any command the government gives, regardless of how differently he should behave as a personal believer. Thus he saw two distinct spheres of life for the believer, his public and private lives.

Having said all that, he did say the following. His words are important, especially for Germany. What freedom for the soul exists there? A freedom to “believe” but not to obey the words of Scripture? Is that any freedom at all?

Words in blue are quotes of Scripture. Words in bold print have been emphasized by us.

"Now, you have just heard that no one but God can have
authority over souls. Hence, Paul cannot be speaking of
any obedience except where there can be corresponding
authority. From this it follows that he does not speak
of faith, and does not say that secular authority should
have the right to command faith, but he is speaking
of external goods, and that these are to be set in order
and controlled on earth. This his words also clearly
indicate, when he prescribes the limits to both authority
and obedience, and says, “Render to every one his
dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom
custom; honor to whom honor; fear to whom fear.”
(Romans 13:7)
"You see, temporal obedience and power apply only
externally to tribute, custom, honor and fear. Likewise
when he says, “The power is not a terror to good, but to
evil works,” ( Romans 13:4) he again limits the
[state's] power, so that it is to have the mastery not
over faith or the Word of God, but over evil works."
"Peter says, Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men.”
Thereby he clearly sets a limit to worldly government, for
if we had to do all that worldly government demands it
would be to no purpose to say, “We must obey God rather
than men.”

MARTIN LUTHER

Founder of the German State Religion

ON CHILD TRAINING 1

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12)

Luther—”From the Fourth Commandment, it is obvious that God attaches great importance to obedience to parents. And where it is not found, there can be neither good morals nor good government. For where obedience is lacking in the family, no city or principality or kingdom can be well governed.

Family government is the basis of all other government; and where the root is bad, the trunk and fruit can not be good…

Luther—”When, therefore, the families are badly controlled, how can the province be well governed? Where the father and mother rule badly, and let the children have their own way, there neither city, town, village, district, principality, kingdom, nor empire can be well and peacefully governed.” (Pages 114-115, Luther on Education, F. V. N. Painter (Philadelphia, Lutheran Publication Society, 1889)

False Love: Luther and Proverbs 13:24

Luther—”A false love blinds parents so that they regard the body of their child more than his soul. Hence the wise man says, ‘He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes’ (Pro 13:24)… Hence it is highly necessary that all parents regard the soul of their child more than his body, and look upon him as a precious, eternal treasure, which God entrusted to them for preservation, so that the world, the flesh, and the devil do not destroy him. For at death and in the judgment they will have to render a strict account of their stewardship.” (Luther on Education, p. 124.)

Parents: Next to God Himself

Luther—”The parental estate God has especially honored above all estates that are beneath Him, so that He not only commands us to love our parents, but also to honor them.

With respect to brothers, sisters, and our neighbors in general, He commands nothing higher than that we love them; so that He separates and distinguishes father and mother above all other persons upon earth, and places them next to Himself.

Luther—”For to honor is far higher than love, inasmuch as it comprehends not only love, but also modesty, humility, and deference as though to a majesty there hidden…” (From Luther’s Large Catechism, quoted in Luther on Education, p. 115-116.)

Luther—”Married people should know that they can perform no better and no more useful work for God, Christianity, the world, themselves, and their children, than by bringing up their children well…It is the peculiar work of parents, and when they do not attend to it, there is a perversion of nature, as when fire does not burn or water moisten.”

On the other hand, hell can not be more easily deserved, and no more hurtful work can be done, than by neglecting children, letting them swear, learn shameful words and songs, and do as they please.

(From Luther on Education, p. 117-118.)

Luther—”“Those parents that knowingly neglect their children and let them grow up without proper instruction, bring about their ruin; and though they do not set a bad example, yet they spoil their children by undue indulgence… Such people as thus fondle and indulge their children must bear the sins of their children as if committed by themselves. There are others who ruin their children by setting them a bad example in word and deed…For when a child is accustomed to hear shameful words and oaths from its parents, what else can it learn but shameful words and oaths?”

Luther on Education, p. 125.

Luther and the Three Hierarchies

Painter—“Luther had a clear conception of the constitution of society. He recognized the existence of the family, the State, and the Church, which he calls “three hierarchies established of God;” and the functions pertaining to these separate spheres, taken together, constitute the sum of human duty. The basis of both the State and the Church is found in the family, in which the young are to be trained for civil life and the Kingdom of God.”